Kitchener’s D-Zero—a self-professed “university dropout and aspiring Sun Ra”—dips into subzero ambience on soft planet, creating a submerged Korg Kaoscillator landscape with electronic pulses bubbling to the surface. Paddling with the reliable strokes of a Volca Beats drum sequencer and mixed with a Tascam 2488, soft planet takes inspiration from the soundscapes of late 90s and early 00s video games. This album works best when it drifts where it wants to.

Best Tracks: q ni edulerp, sometimes when you wake up, and crystal shards

Thin Barrier bears the ambient fruits of an hour-long live improvisation on Peterborough’s Trent Radio during winter solstice. The album features dreamy guitar loops fed through a Casio SK-1 keyboard, field recordings gathered in Mairena Del Alcor, Bellaterra, and Peterborough, and live sampling from Jake Ryan’s phone.

Cacophonous church bells, tumbling microphone blowouts, silky percussive grazes, interlocking guitar melodies, and bobbing samples create the sense of being cradled by branches in the wind, weaving and swaying under the slow transit of clouds. Listen seamlessly.

Best Tracks: Untitled I, Tintinnabulation, Untitled III, and The Rest Of It

Fans of Sarah Davachi will appreciate the hypnotic beauty of Montreal’s Sarah Pagé’s work—at times, it is circularly beautiful, echoing the rippling of a calm blue lake on a dim shoreline; at other times, it becomes menacing, brimming with subdued violence—the metallic shredding of hair gathering friction against string can set the teeth on edge.

Recorded live at Hotel2Tango by Thierry Amar in the winter of 2016, Dose Curves is a collection of solo compositions for pedal harp, homemade pickups, bows, fans, four amps, and electronics. A masterpiece of electroacoustic experimentation, Pagé’s spontaneous incorporation of avant techniques and unexpected instrumentation often makes one forget she’s playing the harp at all. Perfect for reflection, resolution, and revival.